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Rand Paul seems to be digging a whole for himself – well, at least a deeper one than he has already dug. He recently said that only West Virginia should have the right to regulate the coal industry within the state, including health and safety for mine workers.

“Is there a certain amount of accidents and unfortunate things that do happen, no matter what the regulations are? The bottom line is I’m not an expert, so don’t give me the power in Washington to be making rules. You live here, and you have to work in the mines. You’d try to make good rules to protect your people here. If you don’t, I’m thinking that no one will apply for those jobs.”

Of course, the whole reason the federal government had to step in with mine safety legislation was because it wasn’t working without federal legislation. A mine owner can simply threaten to shut down a mine, and move his operations elsewhere, unless the local politicians march to his step. Clearly worker health and safety isn’t an area where states should compete to see who can offer the most “business-friendly environment”.

While Rand Paul’s libertarian sentiments might appeal to the mine operators, and garner him quite a bit of money in campaign contributions in the process, it’s unlikely that it will resound well with mine workers or their families. Or with the thousands of other voters in the state, who know full well what their employers would require of them once federal safety regulations were removed.

The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voters shows Paul picking up 49% of the vote, while Conway earns support from 41%. Four percent (4%) would prefer another candidate, while six percent (6%) more are not sure.

Support for both Paul has been at 49% for three straight surveys while Conway has held steady at 41% or 42%.

It’s going to take much more than your wishful thinking to get Conway above 41%

re 3: Rasmussen polls using robo-calls. Most people hang up on robo calls unless they are ideologically inspired to skew the results or there was never anyone on the other end of the phone in the first place.

What I can say is that the decision to grant personhood to corporations has as more to do with taxation than anything else. Precedent is a tricky thing, though. Once you insert a wedge in the door it begins to widen the opening. For my part I’m fine with eliminating corporate personhood, the minute we eliminate double taxation of corporate profits.

While I personally see homosexuality as aberrant, I do understand the civil rights issues around gay marraige. Whether I agree with the proponents of it is a different thing. The government ought not discriminate on tax policy, employee benefits or compensation or in any other way between adult heterosexual and homosexual citizens. A civil union statute recognizing gay or straight long term relationships would get no oposition from me.

But marraige is different. Eliminating the government role in marraige would be fine with me. But diluting the term for the convenience of a tiny minority seems socially cost prohibitive. Like it or not, the best environment for raising kids is a heterosexual couple in a long term relationship. Like it or not, the vast majority of couples are heterosexual. Marraige and family are the basic foundations on which society is built, and personal convenience is an insufficient reason for destroying them.

http://badlandsblue.blogspot.c.....south.html Here’s how it works…In order to publish as many “polls” as possible that show Republicans in the lead, and therefore convince the electorate that the Democrat doesn’t stand a chance (credit to the Daily Kos for that analysis), Rasmussen does them on the cheap. Rasmussen uses robo-calls, and not live human beings like legitimate polling firms, to conduct his “polls.” That’s why we’ve seen four polls from him in South Dakota and nobody else. Real polls are expensive, and those who truly want to sample public opinion will wait until the race has taken shape before investing in a poll. ABC News, the Washington Post, and the New York Times avoid using results from polls conducted using robo-calls, like Rasmussen’s, not wanting to discredit their organization with results that have been proven unreliable. >>>>>>>>>>:)

http://voices.washingtonpost.c.....asmus.html “Rasmussen Reports uses randomly-selected, computer-generated calls, often referred to as robo-calls,” said McMaster pollster Richard Quinn in a campaign memo. “We’ve seen in past elections that Rasmussen poll numbers are less reliable than ones conducted using the traditional method of live callers speaking one-on-one to registered voters with a history Republican primary participation.” At his blog, Moulitsas authored a post titled “Rasmussen’s (dishonest) game,” accusing the pollster of caring “only about setting the narrative that Democrats are doomed” by eschewing polls on this week’s races for polls on races that showed Republicans romping, notably by missing out on the Democratic victory in PA-12. (:<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<:)

The Senate voted 61-38 to advance a bill that will provide $26 billion in federal funding to states and communities to keep 300,000 cops, firefighters, and teachers on the job.

Maine’s 2 Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, voted with the Democrats. The rest of the Republican senators, who not so long ago borrowed $1 trillion from our enemy China to give tax cuts to millionaires, voted against the bill claiming it added too much to the national debt.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? $26 billion is a piss in the bucket compared to what these assholes spent on their recreational war in Iraq and corporate welfare!!

It’s statistically a fair assumption that your son will be heterosexual.

From where will your boy receive the daily examples of how men and women interact in adult relationships? Who will show him a healthy respect for and love of the differences between men and women? Who will show him all the nuances of that kind of relationship and prepare him for his own adult life?

I don’t question your dedication as a parent. Nor do I question the love most adults feel for children in their care and which I assume you and your partner feel. Nor do I say that, for instance, a single parent should give up their child. But when we socially engineer for the exceptions rather than the rules proven by millenia I think we make a mistake.

“But diluting the term for the convenience of a tiny minority … Marraige and family are the basic foundations on which society is built, and personal convenience is an insufficient reason for destroying them.”

Assuming for a moment that gay marriage dilutes the term, how does simply diluting the term destroy the institutions of marriage and family? And a follow up, if Blue John, a man with a family, were to marry, in what specific ways would his marriage and family work to destroy your own marriage and family?

“But when we socially engineer for the exceptions rather than the rules proven by millenia I think we make a mistake.”

HOV lanes are an obvious example of social engineering. Gay marriage? Not so much. Explain to us how the state recognizing the marriage two people living as a family with a child, such as Blue John’s family, is social engineering.

Well, that’s the problem with the Court’s decision. It focused on the 14th Amendment, without recognizing that a corporation owes it’s very existence to legislation.

To borrow from the Declaration of Indepence, “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”. Mankind may be a creation of God, or of the union of a man and a women, and therefore endowed with the rights protected under the Constitution.

A corporation, on the other hand, owes it’s very existence to the state. It is authorized under state law, subject to the conditions and limitations state law imposes upon it, and it receives it’s charter (Certificate of Incorporation) from a state agency. The state can disolve the corporation for any number of reasons under state law, including simply failure to pay annual licensing fees or file an annual report.

So it doesn’t even become an issue under the 14th amendment. Since a corporation is a creature of legislation, the legislature can limit the authority of a corporation to make campaign finance donations.

I thought I already conceded that not all families are ideal. In fact none are. My parents made many right and many wrong decisions in raising their family. The results seem to indicate they did fairly well. (With the exception of me, but what can you do? Sometimes a kid is just incorrigible.)

My father and I had a conversation while he was visiting last year. We talked about all the ways he parented that I’d adopted, and some of the ways I’d rejected. He didn’t take offense and seemed glad that I was able to learn from his mistakes as well as benefit from his wisdom. I’ve had similar conversations with my mother.

Because all families miss the ideal doesn’t mean we should scrap it though. Having that high point to reach, even if we miss it, ensures we get closer to the goal than if we cynically accepted the impossibility of its attainment.

As for treating women as property, if I advocated that I’d likely have to take to sleeping with one eye open. Mrs. Lostinaseaofblue is not a particularly submissive person, to put it mildly.

At post 18, it’s good you’re just saying, as the text of the article pretty much dismisses the study.

These State should recognize marriage for what ti is .. a long established relationship specific to a pair of people of opposite gender.

There is NOTHING in this statement that says the state can not recognize any other consensual relationship hetero or homosexual, child parent, polygamy or celibacy.

If one limits the State to “pairing” then we can have state authorized pairing as an alternative to heterosexual marriage. France and Quebec have both done this and pairing is, I am told, far more popular than marriage.

As for adoption, it does seem to me that the adoption agencies MUST use subjective judgment. A wonderful single father may be a fat better choice than a married couple who use drugs. Other levels of judgment are harder to make. heterosexuality, per se is an obvious positive, BUT measuring a wealthy gay parent pair vs. a very poor hetero married couple .. that seems to me to be tilted toward the gays. Personally, if all things are equal, it does seem to me to be reasonable to select for the straights … but how often are all things equal?

Since Stockman is a Republican and was Ronald Reagan’s first budget director during the years when the big tax cuts were enacted, you would think they would be very interested in anything he had to say.

Since the founding of our country, a debate has raged over the nature of corporations and whether they should be entitled to the same right to legal “personhood” as actual people. This idea of corporate personhood has recently come under scrutiny.

It was back in 1886 that a Supreme Court decision (Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company) ostensibly led to corporate personhood and free speech rights, thereby guaranteeing protections under the 1st and 14th amendments. However, according to Thom Hartmann, the relatively mundane court case never actually granted these personhood rights to corporations. In fact, Chief Justice Morrison Waite wrote, “We avoided meeting the Constitutional question in the decision.” Yet, when writing up the case summary -that has no legal status-the Court reporter, a former railroad president named J.C. Bancroft Davis, declared: “The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a state to deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” But the Court had made no such legal determination. It was the clerk’s opinion and misrepresentation of the case in the headnote upon which current claims of corporate personhood and free speech entitlements now rests.

In 1978, however, the Supreme Court further entrenched the idea of corporate personhood by deciding that corporations were entitled to the free speech right to give money to political causes – linking free speech with financial clout. Interestingly, in a dissent to the decision, Chief Justice William Rehnquist pointed out the flawed 1886 precedent and criticized its interpretation over the years saying, “This Court decided at an early date, with neither argument nor discussion, that a business corporation is a ‘person’ entitled to the protection of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

But more recently, in December 2002, Porter Township, Pennsylvania unanimously passed an ordinance denying corporate claims to personhood. The Township is the first and only local government in the United States to deny these civil and constitutional rights to corporations. Porter Township and neighboring Rush Township have laws that govern the local dumping of Pittsburgh-generated sludge by charging the dumping companies a “tipping fee.” In 2000, Synagro Corporation, one of the largest dumping companies in the nation, sued Rush Township, claiming that as a corporate citizen, the Township violated Synagro’s 14th amendment rights. In response, Porter Township, passed its precedent-setting ordinance claiming that the dumping company, or any corporation within its jurisdiction, may not wield personhood and free speech privileges.

A more high-profile challenge to corporate personhood involves a lawsuit against Nike and its claims on third-world labor practices. In 1998, Nike CEO Phil Knight wrote a New York Times op-ed piece responding to criticisms of Nike’s Asian labor practices. As was widely reported in the mainstream press in mid-April of this year, San Francisco consumer advocate Marc Kasky filed a lawsuit against Nike believing the company misled the public about its labor practices. Nike, however, claims that the First Amendment protects Nike’s statements, making it irrelevant whether the statements are true or false.

In May 2002, the California Supreme Court ruled against Nike saying its statements were commercial speech, and can therefore be regulated by the Federal Trade Commission. This ruling, writes Justice Joyce L. Kennard, “means only that when a business enterprise, to promote and defend its sales and profits, makes factual representations about its own product or its own operations, it must speak truthfully.”

On April 26, 2003, the Ottawa Citizen provided some pro-Nike coverage of the current case against Nike saying, “The case began some years ago when anti-globalizers accused Nike of exploiting workers at its factories abroad. The Nike-bashing was unrelenting, and the company fought back.” Hartmann’s article also notes The New York Times’ editorial support for Nike saying, “In a real democracy, even the people you disagree with get to have their say.” That’s true says Hartmann, but Nike is not a person-it’s a corporation.

By the release of Censored 2004, the Nike case will probably be a settled issue. It is likely that Porter Township’s ordinance will be challenged in higher courts in the near future. However, Hartmann’s research and writings show that the legality on which corporate claims to personhood and free speech rights rests is dubious.

UPDATE BY JIM HIGHTOWER: Anyone seeking to preserve America’s fragile democracy must first understand the scope and magnitude of the powers aligned against it. We live in an age in which corporations have been enthroned and corruption in high places has enabled power and wealth to be aggregated into an increasingly smaller number of hands. As citizens concerned with the future of human rights in a democratic republic, it’s vital that we now speak up and spread the word about “Corporate Personhood,” which lies at the heart of the challenge facing us today.

On April 23, 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Nike v. Kasky, the Nike Corporation’s appeal of an April 2002 California Supreme Court ruling. In Kasky v. Nike, the California court rejected claims by Nike’s lawyers that the First Amendment immunized Nike from being sued under state consumer protection laws (for allegedly misrepresenting facts in a public relations campaign). The U.S. Supreme Court (where the case is Nike Inc, et al. v. Marc Kasky since Nike is the party appealing) likely will issue a ruling by late June on the Constitutional issue of whether Nike can claim exemption from the California law under the First Amendment. The Court will not consider the merits of the original lawsuit, in which Mr. Kasky sued Nike for deceptive practices.

The story in the Hightower Lowdown received no additional coverage by mainstream media sources. However, the Nike v. Kasky case has generated a substantial amount of interest, although the opinions are predictable. As of May 25, 2003, four of the five largest U.S. newspapers had editorialized on behalf of the Nike Corporation. Though all five had received submissions from nationally published writers, none had published dissenting commentaries. The Rocky Mountain News (#27-Denver) was alone among the top-50 papers in allowing space for a dissent to their pro-Nike editorial. The Sacramento Bee (ranked #31) thus far is the only paper to critique Nike’s “free speech” claims in an editorial (while arguing that the Supreme Court should dismiss Kasky’s suit on other grounds).

re 20 —http://www.ratical.org/corpora.....R1886.html This is the text of the 1886 SUPREME COURT DECISION granting corporations THE SAME RIGHTS AS LIVING PERSONS UNDER THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION. Quoting from David Korten’s The Post-Corporate World, Life After Capitalism (pp.185-6):

From where will your boy receive the daily examples of how men and women interact in adult relationships?

Have you considered that perhaps children should learn that good relationships between anyone are based on respect honesty and trust? Your thinking, that The Children need to have a man and a woman, and only a man and a woman, paired in the leadership of the household or The Children will be permanently impaired is just so…limited…small-minded…bigoted…wrong.

Anybody going to try to see the aurora tonight? Apparently there was a big coronal mass ejection from the sun Sunday, that is reaching earth right now. I’ve read that it could be seen, potentially, throughout the continental US. I was thinking about possibly discovery park.

I’m curious, what’s the deal with The Children? If you mean I emphasize kids as the relevant issue, you’re right. Blue John and I and Steve all have the right to conduct our consentual adult relationships as we see fit. Our kids are the ones who don’t have the choice here. They pretty much have to play the hand they are dealt.

I’m not sure that’s it’s all that controversial to say that kids who grow up with well adjusted parents demonstrating strong relationship skills often end up with strong adult relationships.

Nor am I sure that it’s particularly controversial to say that girls learn the role of wives from their dads and from their mothers and how they interact. Boys learn how to be husbands similarly. How this is a matter of bigotry instead of common sense escapes me, but oh well.

Re 31

Suppose it all turns on why a person thinks homosexuality manifests. Maybe it’s simply the natural expression of sexuality for that person. Maybe it’s choice. Maybe the parents taught them the orientation. Maybe some of 2 or all 3 of these. Personally I don’t know. I have guesses, but since I am heterosexual those guesses don’t really matter much.

What I know is that Blue John and his partner aren’t hurting me or anyone else with their behavior so I could care less, except to congratulate them on 15 years together.

OMG, you really didn’t just write that. OMG you did. Get your head out of your ass. Have you ever known someone agonizing over coming out to their parents? Obviously not. Do gay parents raise gay children? Nope.

What I know is that Blue John and his partner aren’t hurting me or anyone else with their behavior so I could care less, except to congratulate them on 15 years together.

Would be a nice sentiment if it were not backpedeling and totally at odds with everything you wrote before. Blue John’s marriage is just as sacred and right as any other, and he has a right to marry in the eyes of the law and society. Period. Let’s work to get him that right, now.

I’m not sure that’s it’s all that controversial to say that kids who grow up with well adjusted parents demonstrating strong relationship skills often end up with strong adult relationships

Are you implying that relationship ‘health’ correlates with sexual orientation? I think that’s bullshit.

Nor am I sure that it’s particularly controversial to say that girls learn the role of wives from their dads and from their mothers and how they interact. Boys learn how to be husbands similarly. How this is a matter of bigotry instead of common sense escapes me, but oh well.

Learning to treat the person with whom you fall in love and partner with love and respect and honesty and honor is not exclusive to heterosexual couples. To imply otherwise is wrong. I hope this kind of decency someday stops eluding you.

@6 “But marraige is different. Eliminating the government role in marraige would be fine with me.”

The time has long since passed where that’s practical. “Marriage” in a civil sense is a legal contract that, if you will, makes two people into a corporation–a merged financial entity, with a variety of privileges and responsibilities under secular law. The relationship between this and marriage in the ecclesial sense derives from the era in which church and state were essentially one and the same–either the prevailing religion was itself the civil authority, or government was headed by a monarch whose authority was believed to be granted by God and conferred by the church. Separation of church and state, codified in our Constitution and a de facto situation elsewhere, means that civil and sacramental marriage must be treated separately. It may be argued that there be safeguards to prevent any church from being forced to perform marriages that don’t fit its own canons (and not all that long ago, for several sects, marriages to “outsiders” were not recognized), but for any particular religion to dictate to whom and under what circumstances the state may recognize civil unions is clearly wrong. It’s sad that a number of churches (including, to my frustration, the one I belong to) continue to desperately cling to the pretense of civil authority to which they long since lost any credible claim.

@14 Where the hell do you get the idea that gays wouldn’t “understand and respect” the differences between men and women? I daresay a great many of us “straight” folks are sorely lacking in understanding of what gays are about.

My father died when I was eight years old. I was a long five years before my mother happened to cross paths with another man she was able to love, respect and trust sufficiently to marry and spend the rest of her life with. It’s indeed quite likely that my maturation suffered to a degree from that time I spent without a man in the house as an example and guide.

From the reasoning above, based on some set of “statistics” or other, should my mother be held liable for not hitching up with the first schmuck who came along, just for my “benefit”? I think not!

ObaMao continues to be the perverbial “cactus” in the 2010 Elections for all Dems in close races. Watch them have to fight to keep the camera-hungry egomaniac away!!

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 27% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -15

http://badlandsblue.blogspot.c.....south.html Here’s how it works…In order to publish as many “polls” as possible that show Republicans in the lead, and therefore convince the electorate that the Democrat doesn’t stand a chance (credit to the Daily Kos for that analysis), Rasmussen does them on the cheap. Rasmussen uses robo-calls, and not live human beings like legitimate polling firms, to conduct his “polls.” That’s why we’ve seen four polls from him in South Dakota and nobody else. Real polls are expensive, and those who truly want to sample public opinion will wait until the race has taken shape before investing in a poll. ABC News, the Washington Post, and the New York Times avoid using results from polls conducted using robo-calls, like Rasmussen’s, not wanting to discredit their organization with results that have been proven unreliable. >>>>>>>>>>:)””””””””’

Odie @ 48– Only one problem for you & the DailyKos…Rasmussen has one of the most accurate record of any poll the past 5 years. In fact, it has been shown to be Democrat-leaning many times. The most recent was the Brown-Coakley race in Massa2shits. Rasmussen had it a dead heat…and Brown won by 5.

It’s laughable you quote the DailyKos after all their years of lies thanks to Research 2000, which were caught cooking numbers the DailyKos spewed.

Laughable.

The bottom-line is the Democrats are in huge trouble. It’s not just Rasmussen that shows it. Attacking Rasmussen is a sign of clear desperation. I have an idea– Keep thinking things are great for the Dems and stop working. ObaMao is trying desperately to fire up the base by wearing out his “Blame it on Bush” scheme. IT’S NOT WORKING!! In fact, look at the Health Care vote in Missouri. 70% against ObaMao Care, including lots of Democrats and Independents.

The Dems are now so cornered. They think sideshows will pull them out of the shitter. That works when you are out of power. The Dems are in total control. People are not stupid. When a person is sitting at home unemployed since ObaMao took office, bought the Hope & Change bullshit, is about to lose his house….do you really think you can convince him it is still Bush’s fault??? Good luck with that. Desperation.

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